Convenience Food Company Fresh지 Appoints Kim Juhyung as New CEO

Co-CEO of Heodak
Aiming to Evolve from Food Manufacturing Company to Food Tech Company

Fresh Easy, a company specializing in convenience foods, announced on the 30th that it has appointed Kim Juhyung, co-CEO of Heodak, as its new CEO.

Heodak, co-founded by comedian Heo Kyunghwan and CEO Kim, has recorded an annual growth rate of nearly 200% since 2019 through a strategy of analyzing the market based on artificial intelligence (AI) technology and quickly launching various cost-effective products. Based on these achievements, it became part of Fresh Easy through a merger and acquisition (M&A) in 2022.

Kim Juhyung, New CEO of Fresh Easy [Photo by Fresh Easy]

Since the M&A with Heodak, Fresh Easy has been working on transforming into a food tech company by improving factory efficiency centered on CEO Kim, utilizing the largest home meal replacement (HMR) production plant in Korea and AI system and big data-based product purchasing, production, and sales.

The company explained that the reason for appointing CEO Kim is to increase the market share of mid- to low-priced convenience foods by applying Heodak’s strategy, which has grown by expanding cost-effective mid- to low-priced products. In fact, this year, the production volume at the Yongin plant in Gyeonggi, the largest meal kit manufacturing facility in Korea, is planned to increase by about 30% compared to the previous year.

A Fresh Easy official said, "The meal kit market is rapidly changing, being reorganized into online channels along with offline, and the popularity of mid- to low-priced meal kits is expanding mainly among single-person households. We see this year as an opportunity for new attempts for growth and have appointed Kim Juhyung, co-CEO of Heodak, who we judged to be the most suitable for the current situation, as the sole CEO."